Strict Machine: Prompt Fills
by euphorbic
Summary: A compilation of Strict Machine story requests I have filled via tumblr. Mostly backstories, but some plotless introspective pieces, too. If you've read Strict, you know what to expect. The first piece, however, takes place during the current story line. Motorcycles, technobabble, and the like. M/M
1. Pressure Wash

_Note: A compilation of Strict Machine story requests I have filled via tumblr. Mostly backstories, but some plotless pieces, too. If you've read Strict, you know what to expect._

_This request came specifically from synecdoche. She asked for 'motorcycle porn'. I went with it because she's wonderful, but also because I had standing requests for motorcycle sex from two other people (Palalife and mixture). I wish I could link you to it, but synecdoche also wrote a sexy kiss scene in trade._

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_Pressure Wash_

Charles was hiding in the living area's shade again. The blinds were drawn over the windows and the curtains swept shut until the living area's shade reminded him of a bright light over closed eyelids. The interior was shaded, the central air bathing him with cool, but even without the blistering Arizona sun and heat, he felt oppressed. Alex had suggested he see a doctor for Valley sickness, but Erik had said Charles had never experienced a climate anything like the desert and would need time to acclimate.

Charles didn't want to acclimate. He wanted to stay in the dark and cool and study the dichotomy of Erik's furnace-like body on his AC-chilled flesh. They were in the honeymoon stage of their relationship: still learning about the other's body and having both light-hearted and furious sex. Since pulling the façade from Erik, Charles had gained the most intense lover he'd ever known. His focus was like coal compressed into diamond clarity.

One of the more arousing games he'd discovered was enticing Erik's interest. Seduction came in many forms and if Charles had lost ground, in all the best ways, in bedroom games of dominance, he'd taken it back and more through the sheer power of desire.

Laying in the dark, doing none of the work he ought, Charles listened to the high-pitched screech of the die-grinder as Erik hand-cut intake and exhaust ports in a cylinder head. He knew what Erik looked like, there in his shop. He would have the windows shut up, the exhaust fan at full blast, and he'd be pressing the grinder into the head, sending sparks and metal shavings everywhere.

He'd be hot, of course, since the shop was closed and the AC was useless with the exhaust fan on. Filthy from carbon, bits of metal clinging to his skin, and streaked with cutting oil. Charles smiled at the image; he'd seen it often enough before heat overcame him.

Erik would be wearing his leather apron, gloves, and the utility shorts. His boots, of course, his shooting range headphones, safety glasses, and likely a respiratory. He would be shirtless due to the heat and sweating clean steaks through the accumulated debris.

Filthy. Erik was out in the shop, porting heads, and getting increasingly sweaty and filthy. Charles bit his lip at the image in his head. Conveniently, he stripped the respirator from the image in his mind's eye. Erik certainly needed it, but Charles wanted to imagine the set of Erik's jaw, the firm press of his lips, as he concentrated on the exact nature of his work.

Lying immobile on the couch though he was, not all of Charles' body could remain thus with the images he was working with. Even as a teenager he'd been attracted to Max when he was shirtless under his ridiculous industrial apron. His heart rate picked up and his cock pulsed where it lay against his thigh under his boxers.

Charles huffed a frustrated sigh. The problem was that Erik put work before pleasure. He'd managed to divert Erik a few times the first week he'd stayed there, but Erik recognized the trend and put a swift stop to it. There would be no furious fucking in the shop, especially with all the metal shavings everywhere from porting.

His cock didn't really care, though. The rest of his body might have succumbed to lethargy, but his sexual apparatus conspired with his overactive mind. When not working, sex was all he could think about. And Erik? His body, bad knee or not, was an inspiration: a muse for creative debauchery.

Another pulse of blood fed his cock and, in consequence, led to it moving against the fabric of his shorts. That alone was stimulation; the friction of sensitive flesh on cotton was good, but he wanted more. He wanted Erik, fresh from his shop, hands filthy and hot, leaving carbon hand prints all over Charles' pale skin.

Charles rolled over and groaned into one of the couch's cushions. He jerked his hips and ground his increasingly aroused prick against the yielding cushion below. He made a few more passes almost without being aware. Then quit the second he admitted to himself that, yes, he was really dry humping Erik's couch.

Blowing another irritated sigh, Charles sat up quickly. He could rub one out or he could channel his sexual frustration: it was just that simple. Perhaps he could redirect the energy productively by doing something helpful around the house. Dishes were always washed as they were dirtied, laundry was Alex's chore (though Charles and Erik stripped the bed practically every morning). He didn't like dusting and the windows were all clean.

Half hard cock bouncing against his thigh, Charles walked over to the garage door and turned on the light. Was there anything there that needed cleaning? His gaze swept around the interior: across the floor, along the toolboxes, the machinery that didn't fit in the shop out back, and the tidy row of motorcycles. His eyes settled on the R1. There were a few caked on bugs on the plastics and dust and dirt along the lower edges of the fairings.

"Just as filthy as…" Charles chuckled to himself as the thought crossed his mind. He could wash Erik's favored motorcycle.

As a prelude to sex.

Erik set down the die grinder. Even with the exhaust fan going, he knew it was getting far too hot in the shop. He preferred doing performance work in winter, but that was usually when the local racers needed work finished. In Arizona, riding season was different than it was above the American snowline. Where everyone else in the country rode in the summer months, in Phoenix it was generally too hot.

It was getting on toward noon when the heat would definitely be unbearable, so he unchucked the grinder and replaced it with an air nozzle to blow most of the metal debris from his clothes and skin. It took the bulk off, but the dampness of his skin still held glittering and black points of metal dust and sharp shavings.

Giving it up for a lost cause, he hung up the hose and turned off the air compressor and turned to the shop vac. He kept his shop as meticulously clean as he could, which wasn't immaculate by any stretch of the imagination. After cleaning, he pulled his safety gear off and reorganized his bench.

He was filthy, sweating, and probably reeked. It was the dirt, the fine grit covering his skin, that he found the most annoying. Erik wanted nothing more than a thorough shower to chase the grit from his skin, the metal shavings from his hair, and to dust them from the interior of his unloader brace where they collected and scraped his skin.

Flicking the exhaust fan off, Erik opened the shop door and stepped outside. The heat was bad, but compared to the interior of the shop, it was nearly a relief. His internal temperature, however, spiked ruthlessly the moment he saw Charles.

He'd brought the R1 outside to the concrete veranda, near the outside faucet, along with a bucket of soapy water. Erik was amused to see that Charles had even brought out the rear stand to keep the R1 upright without fear of knocking it over. Erik normally washed the bikes or Tacoma on the front drive, but Charles had never seen him do it, so he supposed it was possible he didn't know better. Charles was too cerebral for common sense.

Charles' pale, freckle-strewn skin was blinding in the sun. There was a lot of it to see with only his swim trunks and mop of hair to shield him from the open sky. All the pale skin caught Erik's interest as only Charles could. It was fortunate his hands were dirty; all the better to leave his mark all over him.

With Charles' back to him, one hand soaping the bike up, while the other gripped the seat to steady his crouch, Erik doubted Charles knew he was coming. Not until his long form clothed Charles' hand in shadow. He didn't say anything since his shadow announced him.

Just as suspected, Charles turned and cast a smile up at him. He was paused in the act of soaping up a black plastic panel and looked all the more pale for it. "I wondered how long it would be until I saw you once I heard the die grinder stop."

"How long was it?" Erik smirked, moving closer, using his body to shelter Charles' easily burned skin from the sun.

"Long enough, I suppose," Charles replied and straightened with both sponge and garden hose in hand.

Erik didn't move, which meant Charles was immediately crowded against him. Charles didn't seem to mind. He turned the light burble of water on Erik's left pectoral, despite his shorts, brace, and boots. A sigh left Erik through his nose, his left nipple tightened with chill; Charles' timing was off.

"You should have waited for me to get undressed," Erik reprimanded softly. The water felt good; cool against his hot skin. It began to erode a strip of sweat and grit and soaked into the black waistband of his shorts and webbed fabric of his belt.

"You can still take everything off," Charles grinned, but angled the trickle of water away again. "We're alone today and your neighbors are far away, if not at work."

Erik decided it was a dare and shrugged. He placed a hand on Charles' closest shoulder to steady himself as he brought one foot up to undo the boot's laces, then the other. Charles' blue eyes were wide, pupils pinpricks in the bright sun. He stepped out of the boots, pulled off his socks, then took his hand from Charles' shoulder.

They were both pleased with the smudge his hand left behind.

Removing the brace was next and took only a little less time than the boots, with the velcro and straps. It was a necessary evil; Erik didn't want the metal shavings wedged between the padding and his leg to abrade his skin.

Charles continued to watch as Erik went straight to his wet shorts. He unbuckled the belt, unbuttoned and unzipped the shorts, then let them drop to his feet. The boxer briefs he had beneath were peeled down and tossed on his boots. "I think I need a wash more than the R1."

Charles' mouth opened before his response was available. He closed his mouth and then opened it to try again. "You definitely do."

"You're the one with the water and soap," Erik chuckled, low and throaty. "Should I take them away from you?"

"I don't think you should," Charles replied with a shake of his head. "Give me a moment to assess your condition, so I can decide the best place to start."

Comfortable in his nudity, Erik crossed his arms and shifted his weight to his left leg. His cool confidence, the well-earned pride he took in his body, overcame the reality of Erik's scars and injured leg. Charles set down the water hose and circled Erik with deliberate steps. The sun met the sheen of sweat across Erik's body and lit him magnificently.

He tried to select a favorite feature from the catalogue of his body, but Charles was enamored from chiseled face, wiry limbs, and broad expanse of chest and back. So he chose according to that which he felt he had not paid enough attention to in the past and which would look best with soap gliding along it: the sinuous channel of Erik's spine.

Charles lifted the dripping sponge in his hands and squeezed soap foam on the back of Erik's neck. Erik's head dipped forward and his shoulders dropped in order to stretch his trapezius muscles. Charles followed the swift progress of the soap as it travelled the valley of Erik's spine. He moistened his lips with his tongue as the suds continued to the small of his back and then further, to run along the architecture of his muscular ass.

"Are you going to look all day," Erik's wry voice asked, "or do I need to do this myself?"

Charles blinked away his mesmerism. He placed his index finger on the top knot of Erik's spine and chased the same trail the soap had taken only to detour into a lazy caress of his ass. "What's your hurry?"

"You're wearing sun block," Erik explained patiently, "and I'm not. I don't want a sunburnt cock."

"Mmm," Charles hummed and leaned up to whisper in Erik's ear. "Then I've started in the wrong place."

He moved back to Erik's front again and lost no time wringing the sponge out on Erik's chest. It trailed down his soar plexus, over the dips and valleys of his stomach and abdominals to collect in curls of hair, along the delta above Erik's thighs. Charles twisted the sponge again, this time deliberately dropping thick suds along Erik's rising prick.

Charles smiled up at Erik's darkening expression; he loved it when Erik's lust transformed his face into such seriousness. He dropped the sponge back into the bucket and spared no time on subtlety. He palmed Erik's circumcised cock right away and began working the soap coating it, and Erik, into a lather.

Erik had expected more teasing. The unexpected grab of Charles' cold hand on his half flaccid cock surprised him. He leaned forward into the sensation and had to shoot a hand out to seize Charles' pale shoulder to keep from losing his balance. His mouth fell open on a pleasured gasp. Blood thundered through his system, rushed to fill his prick and, thus, Charles' slippery fingers, as they slipped tantalizingly back and forth along his shaft and dragged across the ridge of the glans.

The surprise on Erik showed followed by his loss of balance spread a wicked grin across Charles' face. It was hard to take Erik by surprise: he exulted every time it happened. "Is it because it takes so much blood to fill your prick out, that you get lightheaded when it happens this fast?"

Erik's teeth glinted in the sunlight as he grimaced against the assaulting pleasure and snark. He gripped Charles' shoulder all the harder, smearing his skin once again with a mélange of dirt and sweat. With his free hand, he took hold of the back of Charles' head and leaned down to savage his lips.

Charles' hand slowed as he lost focus on Erik's cock in favor of his invading tongue. Erik was fast and ruthless, forcing Charles' lips and teeth apart with his own when Charles did not accommodate fast enough. The sharp edge of his passion was as sudden as his hand had been on Erik's cock. He moaned into Erik's mouth as his tongue was stroked, circled, and sucked.

The thing that drove him mad about Erik's kisses: they often mirrored his blowjobs. It had been a month and Erik learned steadily how to best allocate pressure, saliva, and suction to Charles' curving cock. Erik's achingly physical nature, his eidetic muscle memory, was suited to sex just as much as it was to riding a motorcycle or cutting through metal. And while Erik's first blowjob had been inexpert and clumsy, it hadn't taken long for him to master the skill under Charles' direction. Plus, there was plenty to be said for his single-minded will to succeed.

Charles let go of Erik's pulsing cock and placed both hands on the taller man's shoulders in order to break the kiss. Erik's saliva, from a mouth sinfully wet, dripped down Charles' lip. He sucked it off before gasping breathlessly, "Erik, I want you to give me head."

Eyes dark with desire despite the brightness of the sun, Erik nodded. "That makes two of us."

Erik leaned forward just enough to press a kiss next to a lock of hair on Charles' forehead. The gentleness of the gesture was heartbreakingly beautiful; Charles' veins sang with love as well as lust. He'd do anything for him, he reiterated to himself. Anything.

"Shall we take it inside?" Charles suggested, taking his hand from Erik's shoulder and dropping it down to tug leadingly at Erik's fully erect cock.

Erik shook his head. "No, here's fine."

Charles frowned then, tugged again. "The veranda is too hard. You'll hurt your knee."

There was a determined look in Erik's eye that made it clear he had other ideas. "No, not on the veranda. Take off the swim shorts, Charles."

Charles tilted his head in curiosity and wonder. "Very well." He complied quickly, pushing the trunks down over his hips. There was a little trouble when they hooked on his growing erection, but then he had them down. He kicked them to the side, near Erik's filthy clothing. "What do you have in mind, Erik?"

"Sucking your cock," Erik snorted softly. "Did you forget?"

Charles shook his head, "How could I? But I fail to see how we can proceed without hurting your knee."

Erik's smile was wicked and full of teeth; it was all predator and Charles both flushed with the desire of prey and drew up his shoulders in challenge. "Sit on the R1. Backwards on the seat."

The widening of Charles' eyes was every bit as enticing as his hand had been rubbing soap along his cock. "You're joking; we'll knock it over."

Erik stepped forward, crowding Charles back to where he'd been soaping up the Yamaha. "If you hadn't had the foresight to use the rear stand, this would be much harder. Lucky you."

While Charles was thoroughly guilty of being a cock-tease while riding pillion with Erik, he didn't think sex on a motorcycle was… practical. It was a tease, a lead-in to sex once a stable playing field was reached. However, he'd seen Erik kick the R1 over to prove a point; knocking it over while getting a blow job seemed like less of a waste. Shaking his head, Charles turned toward the R1.

The rider pegs were uncomfortable under his bare feet, but using the pillion to steady himself, he mounted the bike backwards. The black seat was uncomfortably hot under his ass, but definitely too much for his sensitive scrotum. He hissed and leaned back over the tank to lift his balls off the black upholstery.

And then Erik was there, leaning over him. He had the garden hose in hand and directed the gentle flow of cold water across the seat, over his thighs, up his abdomen. With his other hand, he swept the water across Charles' stomach, leaving sloppy stripes of grey in his wake.

Charles' eyes closed, just to take in the feel. It was what he wanted; the juxtaposition of heat and chill: the R1's hot tank and seat, the blazing sun, and Erik's hand spreading cool water across his body, leaving tangible marks as the water sloughed grime from his hand. His cock ached for Erik's rough grip.

Erik's hand swept down again, across his hip bone, down his thigh, and gripped Charles' ankle. He lifted Charles' foot and settled it on the passenger peg. Charles mirrored the placement with his opposite foot. His knees pointed at the sky, each at a slightly open angle. Erik left the garden hose on Charles' stomach so it continued to pour water down his abdomen and between the channels of his thighs, splashing across his cock, cooling down his balls.

Charles felt like he was being placed for a pornographic motorcycle photo shoot like he and Max used to search for when the internet was still young. Another flush rose across his skin and sent his cock a new flood of sensation. He opened his eyes and grinned up at Erik when his hands closed on his wrists. "This is getting kinky."

A huffed chuckle left Erik's chest. He gave Charles a smoky look that was entirely consumed with desire. "I was under the impression it was kinky the moment I saw you getting fresh with my motorcycle."

"You've a lot to learn," Charles murmured, his grin cheeky.

Erik snorted quietly again and settled Charles' hands on the R1's grips. "You can twist the throttle while the key's off: the R1's fly-by-wire. Try not to move too much: the R1's steady in the stand, but neither were designed with sex in mind."

"It isn't my fault if this ends in property damage," Charles chuckled, and spread his knees wide in open invitation. His cock was jutting forward and erect. "Don't forget, I'm not completely covered in sunblock."

With another predatory smile, Erik took up the garden hose again and washed off his right hand. It was a small kindness before the greater one of taking Charles within it. Erik's left hand dropped to Charles' wet chest and splayed out wide to steady himself when he leaned over Charles and guided the tip of his cock to his warm lips. Charles barely heard the clink of the garden hose's nozzle as it hit the veranda.

His cock went gladly from cold water to hot mouth. A protracted groan left Charles; he was suddenly grateful for his hands on the R1's grips. He squeezed the black rubber hard as Erik sucked the tip of his cock. He twisted the throttle when Erik's questing tongue slipped about the perimeter of his foreskin, nudging it back and forth with little flicks.

"Oh…" Charles moaned, "Erik, please…"

Erik lifted his mouth up and ran his tongue up and down the hot length of flesh: wrote his name secretly across the shaft using the pointed tip of his tongue. He caused another hiss and gasp by lapping at the head. Then tilted his head to the side and mischievously brushed his slightly stubbled cheek across Charles' pale stomach.

Charles' cry at that sounded more indignant than pleasured. Erik chuckled at his response and parted his lips over Charles' cockhead once again. He curled his tongue lazily to rub at the frenulum then in a broad pass over the head. The skin was soft to the touch, pleasant against his tongue, and increasingly slick with precome.

Using the leverage between the grips and the passenger pegs, Charles pushed his hips up to force more of his cock past the line of Erik's teeth. The friction of Erik's ministrations were driving him crazy, as was his inability to touch him, to grab his head and direct him manually. "Fuck… Erik, more!"

Erik controlled the situation. He pushed down hard on Charles' hips with his right hand until Charles' ass was once again pressed to the R1's seat. He lowered his head to match, though, taking all the length Charles gave him.

Charles was growing ever more incoherent. His hands twisted on the R1's grips, his hips fought the pressure of Erik's hand. His cock strained, releasing a steady stream of precome, which was utterly redundant in the always slick confines of Erik's mouth. He pushed up again, as Erik steadily drove him more frantic. His thighs clenched and relaxed as he was wound up with increasing tightness. A flush that had nothing to do with the blazing sun crept in a wave up his skin. He felt like he would immolate at any moment.

Mercilessly, Erik bobbed his head. He sucked at Charles' cock, and swiped his tongue firmly over the sensitive tip on every upstroke. On the down strokes he forwent suction in order to push the head against the back of his throat. Between Charles' straining thighs, he could feel the skin of his scrotum tightening as his testes gathered for the oncoming orgasm.

The combination of suction and deep-throating didn't take long to snap the tight line of tension running through Charles' over-sensitized body. He strained, crying out hoarsely, as the power of his hips overrode Erik's arm. He jerked them raggedly as mind-numbing waves of pleasure emanated from his groin, as he shot white pulses into Erik's mouth and throat. He shut his eyes tight and lost himself to drawn-out sensation.

As quickly as he had arched up from the R1's tank and seat, he collapsed again. The aftershocks were delicious. Charles lay gasping, feeling pleasantly wrung out. His cock still twitched weakly. When he opened his eyes, Erik had the garden hose again and was using it to wash Charles' semen from his face. With a wry smile, he turned it on his body, to wash away more of the grime from his chest.

Though still weak in the wake of the orgasm, Charles was taken with the sight. Then his eyes followed the water down to Erik's full erection. He reached out and trailed his fingers across the lusty hard on. "You have a delightful cock."

Erik nodded, "So you keep telling me."

He draped the garden hose along Charles' thigh and lowered his hand to join Charles' in tracing tantalizing designs onto his cock's shaft. The slow, soft touches, however, didn't match the immediacy of Erik's need. He knocked Charles' hand away without apology and wrapped his fingers around it.

Erik again splayed his left hand across Charles' chest to steady himself, then started jerking himself off. His cock had been straining for contact throughout the entirety of the blowjob, leaving Erik with little patience. His movements started off long, his thumb perfectly placed to rub over the tip of his cock on each pull. But the strokes came faster, shorter, harder as his wet hand orchestrated the exact pleasure he needed to bring himself off quickly.

Beneath him, Charles was watching, swollen lips parted in exhausted desire. Erik caught his gaze, looked directly at the bright blue of his eyes. His breath came faster, his jaw began to strain as tension threaded throughout his body. The fingers on Charles' chest began to flex, leaving red trails and dark smudges.

Charles watched in pleasure as Erik took himself closer to the edge. He liked inciting all his tells. The jutting of his jaw, the way his lips parted to show the lower line of Erik's teeth, the tendons straining in his neck, the jerking pulse of the vein between his hipbone and the root of his cock. Erik had a catalogue of tells and Charles was quite certain he knew far more of them than anyone else.

Charles' heated gaze made it easier to reach the peak of pleasure. Erik's hand was moving fast, slapping quietly against skin. Precome dripped from his fingers to pool in the hollow of Charles' hip. He panted, gasped under his own touch, and the blue eyes fastened on him.

"Charles…"

And then he bowed forward, exhaled loudly, as the pleasure crested. His cock jerked in his hand as he shot lines of ejaculate across Charles' pale stomach. He shuddered through each hot pulse, like each one cost him a chunk of his heart. The sensation was visceral, powerful, and weakening.

"Yes, Erik," Charles encouraged unnecessarily in his softly accented voice. He took to being come on as well as he took to fucking into Erik's mouth. "Beautiful. Yes, perfect."

When the most powerful of his orgasm's convulsions were done with him, Erik folded weakly over Charles' chest and rested his forehead where he'd left smudges of pressure and dirt. His sides heaved as he worked to regain his breath. It was always like this with Charles. Never any half-assed sex like he'd occasionally experienced over the years. Charles was like a crucible for his oft remarked-on intensity.

Charles carefully let go of the R1's grips, pleasantly surprised they had not dislodged the bike during the blow job. He curled his arms around Erik's head in a brief hug, then reached down for the garden hose at his thigh. Taking it up as he had before Erik came out of his shop, he turned it onto Erik's back and began to rub the sweat and grit away.

"I suppose I'm right back where I started," he said quietly and pressed a kiss to Erik's still-filthy temple.

"You never really left," Erik murmured into the skin above Charles' heart.

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_I hope the new chapter of Strict will be up next week, but I can't promise: this is a really difficult chapter to organise._


	2. liquid trinity

_This takes place a few months after Charles and Max meet. This is a series of three fills for several different requests. None of these are edited, though I did cut quite a bit out of the somewhat trashy sex scene at the end to make it less explicit as I don't think readers are here for Charles/OFC. Also, tense switches in the last piece._

_In case you read and do not upload here on ffn: we're in capable of using a *, -, or anything else to express a page break. I hate that, because a horizontal line just isn't always appropriate. So, I used (soft page break.) below even though it is a little jarring._

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_liquid trinity: peroxide, alcohol, and holy water_

"Do you want hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, or holy water for those?" Charles blurted, and instantly felt like an idiot. It was supposed to come out sounding cool, but he rushed it.

Max turned from the surprisingly solid workbench he built from cinderblocks and plywood. He wasn't sure what Charles was talking about and shot him a look that was both annoyed and curious.

Aggressively quizzical was a sight Charles had seen on Max's face before and often attempted to reproduce in his bathroom mirror. His explanation was simple; "The scratches."

Still wordless, Max looked his arms over, but only saw the straggling scabs from sliding out on a dirt bike that wasn't his. He then hooked his fingers into his butcher apron and pulled it away to look down his chest. Nothing there, either.

"On your back," Charles huffed, growing inexplicably annoyed with his friend. "You have welts all over your back."

A smirk twisted Max's lips into a look that was only a little self-satisfied and superior. Charles sounded jealous, which was preposterous as far as Max was concerned: most of the girls that rode with him were intensely curious of the posh younger boy. "Alcohol."

"Holy water," Charles snorted at Max's expression. Max could be infuriatingly self-satisfied.

"You bring the holy water," Max shrugged and leaned over the plywood and a rack of four carburetors to one of his ratty pawnshop-bought toolboxes. He opened the bottom drawer and took out a small plastic bottle of Smirnoff vodka. "I've got the alcohol."

Charles looked at the bottle in interest. Then he thought about his exams and all the studying he needed to do. He'd been passing exams all his life. Though his good sense nagged him, Charles reached from his seat on an upturned milk crate and took the vodka. "Do you want me to swab this on those? They do look awful."

Feigning disinterest, Max only took a fruitless glance over his shoulder. "Necy is a little crazy. You could do with some. Drink up."

"Anyone that rides with you is crazy, Max," Charles snorted and twisted the cap off.

Max shrugged and picked up one of the ZX6's mirrors from his bench and held it over his shoulder to get a glimpse. "Said the pot to the kettle."

It was hard to figure out why he was disappointed in Max or Denise for the scratches. He liked them both. The presence of the scratches meant they were having sex, which was fine; that was typical of both of them. Denise liked sex. She was unashamed of her pleasure and she was not shy in her interest in dangerous men. Max was just Max: a violent force of nature on a motorcycle.

It was fine. None of his business. Who cared?

"They look infected," Charles snorted. "The next time you guys do it, she's going to get pus under her nails."

"Soak them, then," Max replied, trying to line up the loose ZX6 mirror with the one still attached in order to see his bare back. "Or you can get the peroxide Raven uses to bleach her hair."

Charles took a long pull of the burning vodka. It burned, but he had gotten used to the pain and the fumes. One, two, three… swallows and then he stood. He took the ZX6's right rearview out of Max's fingers and replaced it with the Smirnoff.

Max took a more sedate drink of the vodka as Charles pulled a monogrammed handkerchief from his uniform's blazer. He folded it over several times and took the vodka back from Max. "It'll hurt."

"Yes, so?" Max returned and presented his back.

Charles bit his lower lip. The scratches weren't infected; they were nicely scabbed over. Charles wanted them to be infected and painful, though he wasn't sure why. He held the handkerchief to the mouth of the bottle and upended it. Taking another gulp to burn his guilt away, he began dabbing the vodka on the scratches.

At first, Max made no reaction; the alcohol had yet to penetrate the protective layer of congealed blood. When Charles started to soak the fifth red line, the taller boy's muscles began to twitch. The worst of the marks were on the inner blades of his scapulae where Denise's fingers had obviously caught and hooked. Both sets of reddish brown crescents were the only scratches that were enflamed, though Max's skin was always warm.

"What's it like?" Charles asked quietly, looking at the marks and trying to understand how or why they would have been left. Was sex really such a struggle? He supposed that was the case with Kurt and his mother, but he didn't like to think it had been the same with his father.

Max twitched again, but Charles' wasn't touching him. "In general or with her?"

Charles flushed with embarrassment; he was glad Max had his back turned. "I don't know. In general."

Max smiled in amusement. Charles was a senior in high school despite being only sixteen, and had the naiveté of boys far younger. It was endearing. "If you had a bike, you would know already."

"Kurt would kill me," Charles sighed. "You know that. If he even knew I ride with you, he'd kill me."

"You hate him," Max snorted, "so why do you care? If he yells, just ignore him. If he touches you, call the police. Easy."

Charles took a deep breath and pressed hard on one of the deep scratches. He felt no guilt when Max hissed. "Just tell me what it's like, Max."

Shaking his head, Max relented. "Depends. Hot, wet, soft. The more they like it, the wetter it gets. The better you do, the more they scratch."

Charles pressed down on a scab hard yet again, but in flushing embarrassment; Max's frank talk of wet sex was giving him a boner. "Okay, shut up. Seriously."

"_Scheiße_," Max snapped irritably, he turned and snatched Charles' wrist. "I answered your question."

Charles' face was flaming; he instantly turned his body away, though his wrist remained captured. "Yes, you did. Thank you. I just… your answer… I want to have sex but, I'm not cool."

Charles' face remained averted as Max studied him. It was normal for a boy Charles' age to want to get laid. Maybe it would give him confidence. The problem was getting Charles to loosen up enough that he wouldn't choke if any of the girls interested in him decided to jump him.

"There's a party tonight," Max said in the manner of someone changing the subject to something more comfortable. "Want to come? My pillion's open."

"I have an exam," Charles sighed. "Hurry up with the mirror and take me back home."

"You always pass," Max encouraged. He squeezed Charles' wrist and let go. "There will be a lot of girls. Everyone has to bring a bottle of whatever alcohol they can get."

Feeling his hard on finally start to diminish, Charles looked back at Max. "I'll page you when I'm done studying."

Max slapped him on the shoulder. "You sure you want me to take you home right now? You just had a fifth of my vodka. You don't feel it now, but it'll have you by the time I drop you at your driveway."

Charles nodded, "It isn't like my mother will smell it. Kurt probably won't be home yet."

"Then I'll drop you at your door." Max shrugged and picked up the mirror again. "Take the leads off the battery, put the seat on, and we'll get going."

* * *

_Late for a Very Important Date_

Max grit his teeth. The Ninja was fast, but it couldn't make him arrive on time for an appointment he was already thirty minutes late for. To complicate matters, he could hear and feel the telltale vibration of the bike's plastics rattling from his shoddy job of throwing them back on. At least he hadn't picked up the flashing red and blue lights until after his delivery. Shaw was equally irritable and amused by his addiction to velocity and the attention it potentially brought their way.

Max didn't care: Charles had paged him an hour ago. Fuck Shaw and fuck the police.

He was already flat on the ZX6's red tank, head tucked under the windscreen's slipstream. The needle was dancing around 130 MPH. Wind noise was filling his helmet with a cacophony that was loud even through his ear plugs. The helmet bobbled a little on his head; he needed another, but the Nolan fit Charles better. He often wondered at the efficiency of Charles' body; such a huge mind resided in his relatively small head.

With a turn coming up Max snarled curses into the helmet, which were torn from his lips by the ferocious draft. He grabbed the front brake and pushed down on the rear at the last possible instant and down-shifted like a maniac. Going into the turn he hung off the side of the bike, pulling it down to make the turn as tight as possible.

The lean was extreme; sparks flew from his left side peg where it dragged asphalt. A hole was almost instantly burned through the denim covering the side of his knee. There was a bright moment of pain but Max did not tense. On instinct, he let the rear tire slide a meter as he straightened the bike up so that it brought the back end around the turn faster, lining him up for another straight shot.

The patrol car was on the Ninja in the turn, close enough that Max was bathing in flashing read and blue and the motorcycle's new rearview mirrors were shining in his eyes. Max squinted through, unable to touch the mirrors while he need his hands for brake, throttle, and shifting. He cracked the throttle on the way out of the turn and though the engine hesitated for an instant, it soon roared to life and leapt into the new straightaway. There was another turn and then a straightaway near Charles' home. If he could get enough distance between him and the police car, he had a chance to kill his lights and blaze into one of the long paved driveways of Westchester's rich and infamous. Preferably one of Charles' neighbors.

The rear tire spun on a patch of wet leaves on the road. The lack of traction startled Max, but he was loose on the stolen ZX6 and compensated. If the same had happened in a turn at speed, the likelihood of a highside fall would have been strong. Concentrating on the road ahead, Max angled his mirrors down and pulled away.

In the second turn, the right side panel bowed out and caught asphalt. It broke and ripped away. With any luck, he and Charles could pick it up later.

(soft page break.)

"He's really late," Raven snorted. She was standing close to Charles in the evening's cool humidity, trying not to shiver in her shorts and frilly tank top.

"Go back to the house," Charles snapped. "It's too late for a middle schooler to be out here."

'Out here' was the end of their long driveway and 'too late' was pushing 1AM. Of course Max was late; Max was late approximately 50.738% of the time, which meant he was late more often than not. Not that he kept a running tally because he cared: statistics were important for future researchers.

"No. He wants my peroxide and you can't have it. Besides," Raven complained and held up her pink and blue pony, "he hasn't seen Firefly yet."

Charles raised one eyebrow and looked down at her blonde head in a master stroke of pure condescension. "You know his interest in your ponies is purely polite."

"Whatever." Raven responded at her most maddening. "Hey, do you hear sirens?"

The sirens had been coming closer for half a minute or so. Charles had thought little of them; they were common enough near the city. Raven's query, however, reminded him that sirens in Westchester were uncommon enough, but at the late hour, definitely worth notice.

"So?" Charles shrugged anyway, playing at Max's nonchalance. "They're off the main road. Wait a moment and they'll pass by."

"I bet it's Max," Raven grinned, clutching her pony and the plastic bag with peroxide, rubber gloves, and plastic comb.

Raven's idea wasn't beyond the realm of possibility; Max happily instigated chases whether it was the police or rival motorcycle gangs.

"It might— "

The Ninja roared by. Charles thought he caught a glimpse of a battered red helmet on the rider and a second white one under a cargo net, but in the evening light and flashing lights it was hard to tell. After all, it looked like the right side panel was missing.

"Whoah! Fast!" Raven enthused, and ran for the trees as the police car came on. Charles blinked and followed suit. It wouldn't do to be seen standing around the street at nearly 1AM.

The police car passed in a blaze of lights and siren. Charles and Raven watched the lights until the car disappeared and then the reflection of red and blue through the trees until they too were gone. The siren echoed through the night before the two of them crept from the tree line and back to the driveway's mouth.

"I'm going to marry him," Raven told Firefly, "and we're going to blow up the school. And move to Germany. Fuck yeah. _Scheiße_. "

"Raven," Charles sighed. "Language."

"Deutsch doesn't count," the girl snorted.

"Let's ask Max, shall we?" Charles tossed back, knowing full well the gravity of his suggestion.

Raven subsided quickly, dropping her pony and plastic bag to her thighs. Her head tilted down and too-blond hair slid forward to shield her rounded face. "No. Fine. …Sorry."

They waited quietly a few more minutes. Charles checked the time on his clunky Nokia phone. 12:53. They were beyond late.

They both looked up when they heard the ZX6's inline four coming their way. The lights were off, but the moon cut through the early foliage and revealed Max. He pulled up and put his feet down to steady the bike, but didn't cut the engine. "_Also schnell. Lass uns gehen._"

Charles knew _schnell_ meant 'fast' or 'go' and hurried forward. He pulled the flawless white Nolan from under the cargo net and shoved it on his head. Meanwhile, Raven kept her pink pony close, but held out the bag of grooming implements.

"You should let me do it, Max," she groused and kicked the front tire. "Charles'll burn your scalp."

Max took the bag and pressed it back to Charles, oblivious to Raven's sudden outrage. Charles took the bag and felt both smug and sad for the obvious betrayal on her face. Quickly, Max reached out and squeezed her shoulder in his gloved hand. "No, I'll do that myself. If you do well on your exam tomorrow, I'll pick you up on Monday."

The betrayal melted from her face. Charles snorted. When it came to Raven, Max could always spin gold from her snark. "Alright. Be careful okay?"

Max nodded and grabbed the clutch lever and brought his foot down on the shift pedal. Charles seized Max's leather jacket at the motion, grabbing just in time for the Ninja to jump forward.

* * *

_The Flower That Can't Be Picked_

Charles grins and he swells with surreal pride when the cheers go up and fists are thrown in the air. Next the red cups crash together with the exuberance and thoughtlessness he associates with the party set. His own cup is saved from spilling or cracking when Max turns his hand so their knuckles knock instead of their cups. Little things like that remind him that even though Max is uneducated and violent, he holds Charles in high esteem. Max isn't the scene's average thief and gang banger.

Together they raise their cups to dry lips and drink. It is always a competition for Charles that Max has never caught onto: he follows the working of Max's larynx, counts his swallows. Charles is one behind, but takes one extra after Max lowers the cup again.

The mix isn't as bad as usual: one of Denise's friends couldn't get her hands on alcohol, so she brought a gallon of orange juice. It improves the normal concoction a hundredfold. Still, it rapidly burns all the way down his throat. It is nothing like the thick cherry alcohol Max once shared with him from the Bosnian refugee that rents him storage space. It had burned, but the conflagration had moved like a slow-moving fire.

"Max," comes a familiar voice. Denise slips up on Max's opposite side. She punches him in the shoulder. "What the fuck, asshole? I had to ride with Shannon."

Charles puts the cup back to his lips to hide his grin_. Bros before hos_, he thinks. Denise isn't really a ho, but getting Max's pillion over her makes him feel smug.

"This again? You like Shannon," Max shrugs, "and Charles needed a lift."

Denise snorts and shrugs her pale shoulders.

"Whatever, Eisenhardt," she sniffs. She leans forward and turns to look across the breadth of Max's shoulders. Blonde dreads slip over her shoulder with the motion. "Charles, did you steal the pillion from me? Should I put you over my knee and spank you?"

Lowering the cup, Charles prepares to answer with cheek. "If I knew I could get a spanking from you each time I stole the pillion, I would steal it far more often."

Denise grins and thrusts a thumb's up a few inches from his face. "Good answer! You should meet my cousin, Shannon. She's a great kisser."

Charles gapes at Denise. "You kiss your cousin?"

"Jesus," she laughs, as Max smirks and drinks through their chatter. "Yes, I kiss my cousin. Max kisses my cousin. Everyone should kiss her. But I love kissing more than she does, so it is a little wasted on her."

"I can't decide," Charles retorts, "if you're being humble or not."

"You want to find out by kissing me? If so," she pauses specifically to touch the tip of her tongue to the middle of her upper lip, "we can be monogamous for the night. You can be my British invasion."

Charles is startled. Isn't Denise with Max? Are they just friends with benefits? And Shannon? Is she sleeping with Max, too? Wait. So many girls ride pillion with Max. He doesn't sleep with all of them: he's just something of a couch surfer. He's even asked to crash at the Xavier estate, but Charles hasn't risked it yet.

He glances up at the taller boy. Max is already giving him an amused sideways glance. He tilts his head at Charles in a subtle nod that reminds him of earlier in the day.

"As long as you don't throw my tea in your harbor," Charles manages and thinks himself amazing to push that out past his growing astonishment.

"I prefer the tea to stay on your boat," she winks, "with all your seamen."

Charles' eyes grow wide despite all his best efforts. His blood wants to simultaneous shoot down to his dick and up to flush his face with embarrassment. He can't believe she— Then he realizes what she really said and feels like an idiot. The understanding clears the path of blood to his skin, rather than his penis.

"That was witty," he says lamely.

She laughs at his expression and the pink blush rising in his cheeks and ears. With her typical confidence, Denise leaves Max's side and comes to his instead. "You know I like to be shocking, Charles. Were you too drunk at the last party to remember all my jokes?"

Thinking back, Charles can only remember one about using a leper's back as a cheese dip. Denise's jokes are usually more gross than shocking. "I was less drunk than concerned you were going to fall off the kitchen island during _Blitzkrieg Bop_."

"Right," she returns, slipping her hands on his closest shoulder. She leans to so her breasts are pressing against his bicep. "Then, let's get tanked, Charles."

_(soft page break.)_

It is pushing 3:30AM when Max calls in a favor and one of his gang members shows up with two pony kegs. He's a close-lipped guy with slicked back hair, a scar running through one of his startling blue eyes, and a goatee that makes him look like the devil himself. He's older than Max by far, but the only person to ever put the German boy in a head lock. Max is drunk enough that he laughs through it all and lapses into his mother tongue. Charles watches over Denise's shoulder as the two share a flask before the scary-looking gangbanger heads back to his Honda Prelude.

Then Nine Inch Nail's _Closer_ comes on and Denise pulls Charles close. Charles isn't sure what she's doing is dancing or dry humping, but he's absolutely certain she's centered her pelvis' gyration on his dick on purpose. He's not so drunk that his hard on is slow to work things out. No, Denise has something to work with right away and it works very well through her short skirt, which is fashioned from an L7 t-shirt.

The only part of the song Denise sings is the only part Charles has ever noticed. It bothers him when Max plays it, but there's something to it when the girl that's dry humping his dick is shouting, "I wanna fuck you like an animal!"

Charles takes another gulp of beer from the bottle he's been nursing for an hour and sets it down. He grabs her by the waist and hefts her up. Her legs wrap around his waist and her arms around his neck.

Carrying a girl like this looks so much easier when Max does it. He loses his balances, stumbles, but gets her through the closest door with his dignity intact. It turns out to be the guest half bath, not a bedroom. He sets her down on the sink with a wry grin that does not hint at his fading confidence. "Shall we try the next door?"

In reply, she kicks the door shut with one black Converse-clad foot. "Nope!"

There's no romance in the way she unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his jeans, but he's not looking for romance and Denise dubs such things 'pussy shit'. He pulls his shirt over his torso and tosses it over the towel rack. It's a good thing; the floor is littered with cigarette butts and splattered with alcohol, piss, and vomit. It occurs to Charles to appreciate the strong odor of beer and cigarette smoke.

Charles pulls her green and black tank top up, reaches around for the bra's closure as she works his jeans down to his hips. She's pushing his boxers down when he's still fumbling with the back of the bra. Annoyed, he makes do by simply pulling her bra up over her breasts, which are not as big as Penthouse and Playboy have led him to believe.

Another laugh and Denise takes her hands from his boxers and unclasps the front of the bra. "I'm sorry, Charles, I just like to fuck with guys by wearing this one. Isn't it cute?"

Her bra is black and unexpectedly lacy with red ribbons, but he's more interested in the pale skin and drawn up terra cotta of her nipples. The left one is pierced with a silver ring. The right is limned with tattooed lotus petals. He's certain you have to be eighteen with ID to get these sort of adornments, but she's not old enough to buy Max's cigarettes. At seventeen, she's a year older and seems far more adult than he.

"It's beautiful," he says, but she knows he's not talking about her bra.

"Taste them," she suggests.

Charles needs no more direction, he bends down and sucks the lotus into his mouth. He doesn't really know what he's doing, but he's read Sharon's Harlequin Romances and researched the internet.

"Oh," Denise sighs in pleasure, kissing the back of his neck. "You went for the flower. Max always goes for the hardware."

It should kill his boner to hear her speak of Max, but if anything, it somehow gets him harder. He switches from the satin texture of her tattooed breast to the pierced one. And if he thinks of Max and tries to pretend to be him, licking at the hard nub of her nipple and then hooking the ring with his tongue and pulling, well, it gets the desired results. The sounds she makes are liquid confidence.

"Take off my panties," she gasps her fingernails digging painfully into his scalp. "Oh fuck, they're getting soaked."

He reverts to her flowered breast as he worms his hands up her handmade skirt and snags her panties. They're a struggle to peel off and Denise is no help. He drags them down to the point her fishnets clip to the bottom of the short skirt's hem, before retunring to her breasts.

He hopes she doesn't want him to go down on her, because his mother's romance novels do a shit job of describing how that works beyond the fireworks. Fireworks that the internet tells him don't really exist.

Instead, she pulls him off her glorious tits, and smiles into his face. In the mirror at her back he can see his lips are puffy, red, and wet. He's not sure if he looks good or ridiculous. Fuck, he forgot about his farmer's tan. How he's not as muscular as Max, or as whip-crack thin in the waist, or long in the torso… How he's just _not_ Max Eisenhardt. He's Charles _Francis_ Xavier, the coward of his father's estate.

His stomach drops with his blood pressure.

Thankfully, Denise misinterprets his suddenly softening penis as a reaction to pulling him away. "Hey, no, you were fine!"

To remedy the situation, she pushes one hand in his boxers and grasps the hot, but softened flash.

Charles gasps at the contact, his lashes flutter, and he rocks back on his heels. He forgets his failings and who he is for a moment.

Nobody else has ever touched his bare dick. There've been a few girls from school that engaged in mutual groping, and dry humping over the past two years, but never bare skin on skin. He's too busy enjoying it to see her look of consternation. He sucks a breath through his teeth as she explores his prick by touch. She pulls it from his boxers.

"I've only seen that in porn," she murmurs.

At first, Charles thinks she's complimenting his size, which he's always figured was completely average. Hearing a _girl_ say he's big, though, just pumps more blood through his system.

"Kinda like a dog?"

His cock is still getting gentle caresses, so Charles' pleasure is a thing strangled by shock. _How is his dick anything like a dog?_

He looks down and the heady sight and feel of her fingers on his dick are the only things that keep his hard on from wilting. She's playing with his foreskin.

"Nothing like a dog," he gasps, nearly pulling free, but too much a slave to the pleasure to do so. Why didn't he think of this? Even though there was a strict unspoken code of not looking around while pissing at his school, he'd been to public restrooms and he knew his lack of circumcision was… well, circum_spect_. Foreign.

She begins to stroke it in earnest, only pausing to swipe her thumb over the head as it pushes past the protective skin. Denise is fascinated, but better still, she is smiling. "I'll be careful with it; the skin looks thin. I wonder if it will feel different when it goes in?"

Charles groans, forgets all embarrassment as she, by his estimation, talks dirty. Then he's all but choking in bursts of pleasure as her hand closes around his dick and begins to pump. He's confused. Weren't they going to have sex? However, he only bows his head over her shoulder and bites his lip to keep from making any embarrassing noises.

The friction of her hand on his prick is delicious and eased by slick precome. The fluid is another thing to be embarrassed about, but he says nothing, just focuses, eyes squeezed tight, on sensation.

Orgasm comes fast and ruthless; he can't sublimate his gasps or stop his knees cracking against the cabinet below the sink. She wrings wave after wave of heat and spasm from his body. There's nothing else. He trembles with the aftershocks.

He crumples forward weakly, languid. His forehead presses to her shoulder as he tries to pull himself together.

"Stand up, Charles," Denise laughs softly, "or you're going to get come all over."

Euphoria is immediately usurped by horror. Charles lurches a step back, nearly slips in something he'd rather not think about.

Denise is still amused and holding her hands cupped together. There's something wet and slick on her midriff that is slowly trickling down her stomach. However, the greater amount is in her hands. Charles's face flushes red and Denise hops down from the sink.

"Turn the water on," she says as Charles stares at the load of come in her hands.

He is mortified, but he steps forward and fills her request so she can wash her hands and wipe the come off her pale torso. Moving to the left, she motions for him to join her. "Wash your hands, Charles. You should have clean hands for the next part."

Oh. _Oh, it wasn't over?_ He was fairly certain that the rumors of Denise being the craziest girl Connecticut ever spawned were more accurate than he supposed. Unexpectedly, his dick twitches. He can masturbate twice in a row, but he somehow did not expect he could get it up again with a girl. Obviously the internet is sometimes wrong.

Hesitantly, he joins her and then bites his lip and steals the thin bar of soap from her. She chuckles, fair breasts jiggling, as she tries to take the soap back. The game ends when the soap shoots out of her hand, ricochets off the mirror, and hits the floor where neither of them wants to retrieve it.

The unclipping of her fishnets from her skirt is the only preamble when she hoists herself up on the sink again. "We're lucky," she says, pulling him between her knees. "This sink is a little low."

"I love getting lucky," he quips and isn't sure if he sounds cool or like a tremendous dork.

When Charles looks down he sees the logistics are indeed convenient. He thanks his parents for not passing a trait that would dictate short legs and goes after Denise's tits once again. She returns the favor, stroking his dick with a hand that is still wet and a bit soapy. The shock to his system is exquisite. He covers his gasp by sucking on her breast hard enough to make her groan.

It takes a little time, but she gets him hard again. He wonders when he should go for the condom in his wallet. Since she's called all the shots, though, he suspects she'll let him know.

There's a little more foreplay wherein she has him teasing her slick clit and labia before she tells him, as he hoped, to put on the condom. Once he has it on, she helps guide him to.

"You don't have to be careful," she pants. "Just don't come before me."

"Got it," he promises, though his voice is anything but steady on either of the two syllables.

She said not to worry, but Charles presses into the wet heat of her as slowly as he can. The heat and squeeze of the slick channel makes sure it is not a pace he can maintain.

Seconds later, he doesn't really know what he's doing. He's clutching her hips. He's snapping his. She's scratching the fuck out of his back. She's clenching inner muscles around his dick and he doesn't even know what they're called.

The stereo is pounding a remix of Missy Elliot's _Hot Boyz_. Max likes the song because it mentions CBRs. And now he's thinking of Max. Does he fuck Denise like this? Harder? Will his back look like Max's? How long does he last? Is he a good lover? What makes it good? _The better you do, the more they scratch._ He's doing better. _The more they like it, the wetter it gets._ She definitely likes it; his balls are wet.

For a moment, just a moment, he thinks about how Max was fucking Denise previous in the week. In his mind's eye, he sees it. The moment is broken when she loses the rhythm and goes rigid, her nails catch on his scapula and she grinds down on him hard, her vulva clenches and releases in spasms that she can't seem to control.

Biting his lip until he tastes red, Charles closes his eyes and recaptures the image of Max driving into Denise. The inspiration is his undoing, though she tries to push him off and out, he drives in few more times and loses it in a convulsion of blinding ecstasy. It feels even better than coming from a fistful of lotion and fantasies about any of the Spice Girls he's supposed to disdain.

When it is over, he collapses forward, bracing his weight on his hands, his body sags between his biceps. He feels good, out of breath, but euphoric. His softened dick slips free, but he's too dazed to pull the condom off and clean up. He's hardly aware of a nip of sharp teeth at his chin. Denise has almost caught her breath. She's smiling again and rubbing slowly between her thighs. "We should have done that sooner."

He nods wearily, but the stinging lines across his back suggest otherwise. He wants nothing more than to pull his pants up and sleep on Max's back on the ride home.

Denise slips down from the sink again and starts the water. She cleans up and resituates her clothes. Not one for romance, she pats his weary cheek before she slips out of the bathroom, leaving Charles to recuperate and clean up alone.

Being left so quickly is disappointing, but he knew better than to expect her to stay. While the speakers pump out a song he doesn't know, Charles cleans as thoroughly he can. He pulls his wallet out of his pants and pulls his boxers and jeans up. The shirt drags over the welts she gave him. He hopes they won't bleed through; he doesn't want to explain to any of the house staff. It'll be hard enough hiding it from Raven.

He's still a little dazed when he opens the door. Enough so that he walks through despite the body standing in front. He collides with the figure, but feels too relaxed to be annoyed. Endorphins are interesting things.

The person turns and Charles finds himself smiling quietly up at Max. "I'm tired."

Max nods quietly, his snort of amusement swallowed by the music. "I'll take you home."

Smiling into a feeling of being sheltered, Charles rests his head on Max's shoulder. "Did you ask her?"

"I only told her you like her," Max replies, tousling Charles' hair. "She's always going on about how nerds are better at sex because they research it."

"I think she's just a cherry-picker," Charles chuckles. It isn't until he's on the back of the ZX6, one hand gripping a grab bar and one hand pressed to Max's chest that he realizes: he may have progressed the sexual odds of the young intelligentsia of New England. The thought makes him laugh into his stolen helmet.

He'd rather just be more like Max, but with the alcohol in his veins and the welts on his back, he figures he already is.

Scant hours later at school, Charles has another first: he receives a B- on his exam. Kurt Marko will be furious.


	3. (i still think of you)

A really short fill for this prompt_: A moment Charles thought of Erik and a moment when Erik thought of Charles when they were still apart. _

* * *

_(i still think of you)_

For somebody without a Facebook account, Erik has more interest browsing it than he thinks is intelligent. However, he does not deny himself the truth: it provides him proof that the choices and sacrifices he's made aren't for naught. Additionally, he likes to see what kind of life Charles is living and Facebook gives him that. He can pretend that it hasn't been eight years since he's seen him.

Occasionally, there's a scandal on Charles' Facebook page. More likely, Raven will tag embarrassing photos of Charles that he'll catch before they are untagged. Erik can sit quietly at the kitchen's corion island and scroll through a life that he's no longer a part of, in which he is never mentioned, and think of himself as well-kept secret.

Until one day, he clicks the bookmark and Charles' life does not open up before him on the laptop's screen. At first Erik thinks there's something wrong with Facebook or, perhaps, with Charles' account. But then, he reads the text that explains that Charles' Facebook account is now 'friends only' and he can't escape the truth any longer. He and Charles are no longer friends.

He leans back on his bare heels and fishes a cigarette out of the box in his shirt pocket. Usually he doesn't smoke in the house, but it's his place and he can break his own rules. Erik regrets only that he's long since used to the burn of the smoke in his lungs. Leaving the cigarette between his lips, he clicks over to Amazon and types 'Charles F. Xavier, PhD genetics' into the search field.

There are a few publications Charles has contributed to that he hasn't seen before. He logs in and uses the credit card he has opened in Alex's name and purchases both.

…

Charles excels at not thinking about things he doesn't want to, but there's so much to look forward to now that's headed to Britain once again, that his guard is down. He sits on the plane where he has already ignored the flight attendants' instructions concerning what to do in the event of a crash and continues to reread the latest copy of Genetics Journal.

One day, he thinks, he will be a contributor to vaunted academia, like those already published within the magazine. In fact, today is his first step: taxiing down the runway, moments away from flying to his freshman year at Oxford. His life is sitting ahead of him and he knows how to navigate his way through it.

As the jet's turbines roar and speed kicks in, though, his eyes track across the words within the journal, but his mind is elsewhere. He remembers the roar of the GPz's boost through a straightaway. He recalls wind over his body as he chased Max through the back roads in the middle of the night. Of Max's breath on his cheek as he leaned over his shoulder, GPz stationary, and held a joint to his lips. _Take a breath_, he'd said. _You need to relax to ride well._

Charles frowns and focuses back on the magazine's text. Max is gone. There wasn't a funeral or an obituary in the paper to hold onto. If there had been, he thinks, maybe he would have some sort of closure, but there isn't. So all he can do now is think of a future without Max where he may one day forget about the pain of his loss. He purposely does not attribute Max's death to his ability to focus completely, to exclusion of all else, on his chosen major.

When he feels the airplane's front wheel leave the ground, though, Max is all he can think of. It is possible, he thinks, that Max is a wound that will never heal.


End file.
